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plauben - among other meanings the subjunctive is used after a verb that express doubt/fear/JOY/hope/sorrow or some other emotions. In this sentence the "ME GUSTA" expresses "JOY" hence the subjunctive "pase" is used.

Everytime you use gustar and then have to conjugate a verb after that (in that case the 'que' will be there). but that doesn't happen all (or even most) of the time.
'me gusta comer' is infinitive and thus not subjuctive.

This is present tense, so it's not an expression of doubt, but instead an expression of emotion. If it were "me gustaria que la gente pase por aqui", then it will still be subjunctive but for an expression of doubt rather than emotion.

You do not have to be in conditional to require a shift into subjunctive. Certain verbs, even in plain present tense, automatically shift you into subjunctive. Querer is one of these: Yo quiero que tú entiendas. I want you to understand. (Note that "entiendas" is a subjunctive form of "entender".) I don't know if you actually do or even will understand, but I would like it if you did. Hence: doubt, supposition, speculation, counter-factuals. Subjunctive.

There are also formulations using an impersonal "es" that work like this. Like, "Es posible que..." The phrase, "It is possible that..." automatically introduces doubt. It doesn't have to be "Sería posible que..."

If you want to literally translate the grammar at a word-for-word level, yeah, that's kinda true. But then, if you were going to try to do that, you'd be translating "gustar" as "to please". "Me gusta manzanas," is, "Apples please me," which is why you see the object pronoun "me", not the subject pronoun "yo".

Add in the additional layer of complication that the clause is in subjunctive. The current "canonical" translation misses the meaning in a critical way. It sounds like it's asserting that people are passing through here, and I like that. Which is wrong. It's saying that it pleases me for people to pass through here, without saying that they are passing right now. That's kind of the core difference between indicative and subjunctive.

You could translate this as something like, "When people pass through here it pleases me," but that sounds pretty awkward. In general, "Me gusta que [subjunctive clause]," ends up translating most comfortably to English as something like, "I like it when" or "I would like". We don't have the same set of moods and tenses as Spanish, so you can't expect to map back and forth among them on a 1:1 basis.

I put 'i would like the people to go through here' and was rejected. I wonder if was because of the 'the' or the use of 'go'. I will report it just in case that my translation could be accepted. Thanks!

"Me gusta" implies a sense of enjoyment. It please the speaker. "I wish" lacks that sense; it gives more a sense of longing for something to happen. I would like = "me gustaría" This latter phrase implies a condition, an "if".

http://studyspanish.com/lessons/subj1.htm
The subjunctive mood is used to express everything except certainty and objectivity: things like doubt, uncertainty, subjectivity, etc. The difference between indicative and subjunctive is the difference between certainty/objectivity (indicative) and possibility/subjectivity (subjunctive).

when a subject of a sentence wants, likes, hopes, requires or expects (etc) that a different object (not themselves) does some thing then subjunctive is used.
Eg. I want (that i) to go --¨quiero ir¨
i want you to go---¨quiero que vayas¨

The Spanish doesn't mean liking the people, it means liking where they go. “I like the people passing by here.” would be ‘Me gusta la gente QUE pase por aquí.’. The translation accepted is “I like THAT people pass by here.”, not “I like THE people pass by here.”.

It's the difference between putting the word que in that sentence before or after the words la gente. To do so gives the sentence an entirely different meaning. You would be correct if que were to follow gente.

Yet Duo has accepted similar translations to suziemalt's in the past. Also, your sentence also has "que." Can you make us understand why not including "that" in the translation is okay in one sentence but not okay in the other?

In English, you can say either (A) “I prefer [the fact] that the horse passes by here.”, or (B) “I [would] prefer the horse to pass by here.”. With the “that”-clause construction (A), the whole subordinate sentence “The horse passes by here.” is treated as the direct object of the main verb “prefer”. But with the “to”+infinitive construction (B), the subject “The horse” of the subordinate clause is promoted to the direct object of the main verb “prefer”, and the subordinate verb “passes” is turned into an infinitive “to pass”.

[I've substituted “prefer” for “like” to avoid the subject-versus-object confusion of the Spanish ‘gustar’; and I've substituted “horse” for “people” to highlight the distinction between the finite form “passes” and the non-finite form “to pass”.]

In Spanish, you can say (A) ‘Prefiero [el hecho de] que el caballo pase por aquí.’, where the ‘que’-clause works exactly like the English “that”-clause. But Spanish has no counterpart to the “to”+infinitive clause. Instead, you'd say (C) ‘Prefiero|Preferiría [la eventualidad de] que el caballo pase por aquí.’ = “I [would] prefer [the eventuality] that the horse pass by here”. So in Spanish, both expressions use the word ‘que’.

The English “to”+infinitive construction is actually really weird, because semantically, it doesn't make sense for the subject of the subordinate clause to be the object of the main verb: “I prefer the horse to pass by here.” doesn't mean “I prefer the horse”. Maybe I hate that horse; I just want it to pass by over here so it doesn't eat my roses. In Spanish, if ‘el caballo’ is the object of the verb ‘prefiero’, then no matter how the sentence continues, it's clear that I prefer the horse.

My apologies, I misread your translation. You're correct. The construction “I like for…” without the conditional mood doesn't exist in my dialect, but it's extremely common. Duolingo should definitely accept “I like for people to pass by here.”.

I disagree. "I like that people go through here" sounds fine to me. And apparently it was even your first instinct too since you describe it as a "literal" translation. Maybe there once existed a rule against using "that" in this way... but if so, it's a bit out of date. I think your alternative is a good one, too, but I don't think the English phrase has to be phased that way.

If "gustar" triggers the requirement for the subjunctive, I'm now trying to remember the 500 previous usages of gustar I've seen here, to find out if I learned something wrong. Because I am pretty sure none of them were in the subjunctive.

we have only seen it as the only verb in the sentence or with an infinitive attached. 'I like to play sports' or 'I like running' is a very different meaning/use than 'I like that you (he, I, etc.) play sports'.

For "Me gusta que la gente pase por aquí." one of the suggested translations is "I like that the people to passing by here." which to me does not sound like proper English. Can any native speaker confirm?

Also, is there a reason why "I like that the people are passing by here." should not be accepted?

Yes, it's needed. To "pass by" or "pass through" means a person is in the process of going somewhere. But "to pass" by itself has several completely different meanings in English. For example, a person can pass a test, or she can pass when playing a card game (meaning to give up one's turn), or he can pass for something he's not.